She glides over and slides into Nathaniel’s vacated seat with grace.
And I know before a word is spoken: Anne Vanderhoof is back for a rematch.
“You know,” she starts without preamble, “it just dawned on me why Nathaniel never reached out when he got back to the city.” Her smile is feline and predatory. “I half expected him to show up at my door the way he used to—impatient, already half undressed.” A giggle follows. It turns my stomach.
She leans one elbow against the table, eyes glinting. “He must still be upset with me about last Christmas. I suppose I deserve that. I vanished without saying a word, after all. Monaco will do that to a girl. With a prince, no less.”
She offers me a conciliatory grin. “He was charming, generous…but even royal stamina has its limits. Nathaniel always did set an impossible standard. And so insatiable!”
Anne laughs softly, the sound intimate enough to feel indecent. “I still remember how he left a board dinner early—” She breaks off, feigning discretion. “He barely made it through the appetizer, more eager to get his head between my legs.”
The image hits before I can stop it—her body, his mouth—and the thought alone makes me recoil.
Anne drinks it in, victorious. She leans closer, voice lowering to a whisper that’s meant to sound private but carries easily.
“He always gets this look,” she breathes. “Right before he loses control… The way he?—”
Something hot and sharp unfurls inside me, a pulse of jealousy twisted with possession, startling in its clarity.
“Sounds like you should circle back to that prince, Anne,” I interrupt, my tone cool enough to frost glass. “Maybe make some new memories. Because while you’re stuck in Nathaniel’s past, I’m his future.”
I hit my mark. Anne’s smile falters just enough to satisfy me.
I rise slowly, smoothing the silk at my hip. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need a change of scenery.”
Nathaniel appears at my side, concern tightening his features when he sees my face. “What’s wrong?” he asks quietly.
“There’s just this…sickening smell of gardenias,” I say, eyes still on Anne. “It’s starting to make my head spin.”
His hand finds the small of my back before I can take a step. “Then we’ll go,” he says simply.
Anne opens her mouth—a stammer between protest and plea—but the words fall uselessly as we turn away. The crowd yields instinctively, parting around us. Nathaniel’s hand never leaves me, his body angled protectively close, his composure absolute.
We slip through a side arch of the Forum. The corridor stretches ahead, washed in amber light that pools across the floor. Every sound is amplified—the whisper of my gown, the echo of his measured steps, the uneven rhythm of my breath.
He doesn’t let go, guiding me with the quiet insistence of his touch. I can feel him willing me to look at him, but I keep my gaze forward. Facing him now would shatter the composure that I’m clinging to.
His silence vibrates with intent. I can almost sense the words he’s weighing and discarding—he’s desperate to speak but already certain that anything he says will only make things worse.
“Olivia, what?—”
“Not now.”
Silence descends again, denser than before. The corridor seems to lengthen with every step.
The scenes Anne conjured won’t leave me. They loop in my mind—too vivid, designed to humiliate. She wanted me to imagine her with Nathaniel and to suffer for it.
Yet what rises now isn’t fury, it’srecognitionof the same need that has always fueled Nathaniel. For the first time, I can understand it—this desire to belong to him and to make him belong tome.
The emotions curling through me feel dangerous, but not wrong. Jealousy burns differently than I expected: clear, hot, oddly exhilarating.
At the base of the grand stairwell, Nathaniel turns left instead of heading toward the exit. He doesn’t explain, and I don’t ask. My heels strike the stone in steady rhythm as I follow. His need for privacy is reflex; my willingness to follow, the same.
We pass beneath another arch and the McGraw Rotunda unfolds—vaulted, luminous, painted with history. Saints and scholars watch from the ceiling, their gold-leaf halos flickering in the filtered light. The gala’s laughter is distant now, muffled through stone.
Along the edges, roses mass on narrow tables—Renée’s signature—petals glistening as if they’ve just been cut. The scent hangs thick and sweet until it turns claustrophobic.
Our footsteps echo across marble—my heels betray my nerves, the sound uneven, sharp. We stop beneath the muralStory of the Recorded Word.A long oak table waits there, strewn with stray champagne flutes left from earlier service. I steady myself against it. Nathaniel faces me, hands hovering between apology and fear.
